[gal4giants]

http://www.labellavi..._Vita/Home.html

I don't know anything about it really except Brian's mom who still lives in Scholls told us about him/this place a few months back. She likes it & asked if we've tried it yet a few times since then. So there you go.

[Rollin]

I like La Bella Vita.
I've posted it in a pizza thread before and some didn't like it.
I would prefer a thinner crust but it tastes good and their toppings
are good. You can pick up a piece and eat it without it flopping.
Salads are very good esp the pear salad. Very good Italian sausage
in the sausage sandwich.
Nice beer selection on tap.
Clean well decorated place with a game room for the kids. Multiple
tvs on the walls for sports too.
When surrounded by the likes of Hungry Howie and Papa everything
I'll take this family run place anytime. Would I prefer Apizza Shoals ?
You bet. But I can't drive, find parking, and wait for a table everytime
I want a pie.
Everyone is different on how they'd like a pizza and even the best isn't
going to please everyone. I didn't like every pizza I had at Apizza Shoalls.
If your out this way give them a try. It just might fill that pizza fix.

[rewdpost]

I guess I'll have to give them a try again. I just remember not being impressed at all on my first visit.
Maybe they've gotten things dialed in since the early opening weeks.

[jennifer]

We went last week and though the place is a great setup for family dining, the food didn't measure up. I'm sad to write that because I really wanted to like this place. And even harder, the owners are incredibly nice and keep the place spotless, and have obviously invested a lot of thought and money in making it a nice place to visit. Complete with a back alcove with a wide-screen TV where they play kids movies, and plenty of board games & dice games (Yahtzee, etc) on hand to keep tots and teens occupied. They've really thought everything through, down to the last detail. But the food just didn't measure up.

Nice beer selection on tap, like Rollin mentioned. And they've got 2 or 3 additional monster-sized wide-screen TV's that air sports. Everything in this place is spotless, and they keep the cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen in a restaurant. The owners really take care of this place, lotta love going on here. They just need some help in the food dept.

We ordered 2 personal pizzas, 1 medium pizza, a calzone, a side salad and some drinks. All of the pizzas were very thin crusted. So I'm wondering if they changed their recipe some since Rollin was there last. There was also good coloring on the bottom of the pie, and the slices didn't droop when you picked them up. But everything was flat tasting. The crust didn't have that malty-yeasty kind of fermented flavor I really look for. It was more like a flat bread. Same crust on the calzone but it was thinner & crispier, so it worked better in the calzone against the soft ricotta and meat fillings. The cheeses didn't seem to have much flavor, and the meats were middle-of-the-road standard...not horrible like the chains, but not high end either. The veg pizza had all the standard things on there: button mushrooms, sliced green & red bell peppers, sliced red onion, olives and I opted out on the pineapple. It was okay, but definitely not special. The side salad was standard romaine & iceberg, cherry tomatoes, standard croutons & a weak thousand island dressing.

However much we loved the space and the people, nothing in the food really stood out or would make us want to return. Bummer. Total bill was $66 with tip.

Attached File(s)

•  pizza_sm.jpg (123.16K)
  Number of downloads: 2

[ExtraMSG]

Thanks for the pic. That crust looks like the mid-west/Chicago style party pizzas where people go after a night of bowling.

[Rollin]

Thanks for the review jennifer. Report is spot on.
I love this place. If they just did a little research into what makes
some pizzerias so popular they could have a very nice place here.
It's not like they'd have to go very far. If I invested so much time
and money I'd sure be looking into what makes others successful.

[jennifer]

it makes me sad, they've got the perfect setup to be a huge success, including the pizza ovens & the kitchen. They just need to up their game on the food. We'd be there every week if they were putting something out that was even close to what we're seeing in Nick's pics from Lovely Fifty, or Kens/AS/Firehouse/the dive on Alberta, etc.

For all we know though, they may be swamped during school baseball & soccer seasons with the new athletic fields just across the parking lot from them. Everyone goes for pizza after games, so their choice in locations is spot on, in that respect.